Hear me roar
by Ivy Kendall
Summary: Glimpses into the private world of Sharon Raydor  or "a fictional response to my completely visceral conviction that Sharon Raydor has never experienced physical abuse"
1. Chapter 1

"Will, go to hell!"

Uh-oh, Jamie thought as she heard her mother slam the phone down the hall. She looked across the room to her older sister and they exchanged that knowing look, bracing for what was about to happen. Both girls knew their mother's rage was not directed at them, but they knew the were going to get it full frontal nevertheless.

Jamie and Lexi Armstrong had the pleasure of being the daughters of the incredibly driven, incredibly brilliant Sharon Raydor. They also had the pleasure of watching the Irish temper of said Sharon Raydor explode on more than one occasion and knew the fireworks display they were in for. Neither could run since they had previously been baking in the kitchen with their mother when the phone rang and Sharon had told them she'd be right back.

The slippers scuffing on the hardwood floor grew louder as they approached. Jamie squared her shoulders and readied herself to appear nonchalant. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the back door to the kitchen open and hissed "Code Green". Quickly the door closed again just as Sharon rounded the corner.

"The nerve of that man... How dare he!"

Sharon paced back and forth in front of her daughters, fists clenched and shaking in anger.

"I will never understand how men can be anything they want to be and can just be men, but when women show interest... even a little compassion... they are obviously covering up something in their past. Argh! The idiot! Would he talk to me face to face? Oh no, not the great Will Pope. He's got all the answers. No, I need to talk to someone professionally. Damn him to hell! Who does he think he is?

"If this had been a year or two ago, I would have guessed he was being led around by the short-n-curlies by Chief Johnson, but even she's smart enough to separate compassion from personal experience. No, this comes from the fool himself. Just because some forms of crime affect me more than others, doesn't mean they are reminding me of my past. Oh, I'm so mad I could spit! I need to hit someone or throw something!"

Reaching into the basket closest to her, Sharon picked up the first object she could find and threw it agains the far wall. Then she reached for a second object, and a third. She grabbed the forth item and held it high in the air, poised to throw it with equal ferocity as the air went still, and then the inevitable happened.

It started with Lexi first. She just couldn't control herself any longer. Then Jamie started and Sharon had no choice but to join in. Laughter bounced from every corner as the three women laughed at the absurdity of what had just transpired. Sharon lowered the beanbag that she had held high and bent over in two as her entire frame shook in fits of giggles, her long, dark auburn hair creating a veil around her head. Jamie laughed so hard she had to wipe tears from her eyes. The sight of their mother in full violent rage always brought this response as it cooled. As children they had learned to wait for the explosion, then everything could get worked out with a calm hand. The only thing that had changed over the years was that their mother's language became more colourful as they had aged. Jamie often wondered if their mother was relieved to be able to indulge completely in her rants without censoring her verbal choices.

"Oh, why is he so stupid" Sharon laughed as she stood up straight again, put the beanbag in the basket and moved to sit at the table with Lexi.

"Ummm... because he's a man?" Jamie offered.

"He's a fool" Sharon agreed.

"Yay, but he's a sexy, teddy bear of a fool" Lexi pointed out.

Both Sharon and Jamie looked at Lexi who just shrugged. "What? He is a sweetheart and we all know it. Sometimes he's just not smart enough to stay clear of certain things where Mom is concerned. Which begs the question, what did he do this time?"

"Oh, what he always does" Sharon sighed in response. "He tried to out think me rather than asking me something to my face."

"And...?" Lexi encouraged.

Sitting up a little straighter in an attempt to mock her Superior Officer, Sharon lowered the glasses to the tip of her nose and said, "It's come to my attention that you are not dealing well with the cases of spousal abuse we've been seeing recently, suggesting you have not dealt with your own possible history of abuse. Since I respect you both personally and professionally, I would like you to initiate talks with the department Psychologist rather than have my office schedule them."

"What?" the girls said in unison.

Sharon put her hands up in defense. "I know, I know... And the assumptions and suggestions that makes, without even knowing any of my history, not to mention sullying the reputation of a man who would never harm a flea... Well, I don't need to explain my rage do I?"

"Okay, I take back my 'sweetheart' comment, that's just over the line." Lexi replied, feeling a rage of her own develop. "Where did he get the asinine idea that you were an abuse victim? And Daddy? He thinks that Daddy hit you? That makes me angry and want to throw things too."

Just then the back door opened again and two sets of green eyes peered in along with a hand holding a white flag. "Is it safe?" the owner of the older eyes asked, waving the piece of fabric.

"Yes it's safe boys, come on in. What were you doing out there anyway?" Sharon asked, trying not to laugh at their faces.

"Jamie signaled that we might want to wait out back for a while. How bad was it anyway?" Sam inquired, with a hand on his younger brother's shoulder just in case he had to pull the teen back in a hurry.

"Three beanbags and a fourth ready to go" Jamie told them.

Whistling as to pity the target of his mother's outburst, the youngest Armstrong broke free of his brother's grasp and entered the kitchen, grabbing cookies along the way as he went to sit with his sisters and mother.

"Three beanbags..." Sam started wistfully. "That rules out the FID department, they've only manage two. The Deputy Chief gets a total of three, tops. So that means..."

"Enough already" Sharon told him, with laughter threatening to consume her again. "Your scale is not helping."

"Gotta be Poop", Riley finally said, earning him a tuff on the back of the head.

"Poop do something stupid again?" Sam asked. Then as if speaking to thin air he continued "wow, that was redundant."

"Come on guys, his name isn't Poop, it's Pope, and of course he did something stupid" Lexi corrected them.

"When will that guy ever learn," Riley shook his head as he munched his fourth cookie.


	2. Chapter 2

Sharon needed to walk off some of her aggression, so she left her children taking pot-shots at Will Pope while she changed into her sneakers and went outside. The humour in her reaction notwithstanding, there was now the very real problem of Will's erroneous conclusions about her past and her experience of spousal abuse. How had he even made that assumption? Sharon rarely talked about her late husband but only because she was at peace with his life and death, and shared very little of herself with her colleagues as a general rule. Work was work and home was home, and that had always been true. She couldn't be the professional she wanted to be if she was carrying family problems into the office with her. Conversely she could not be the mother she wanted to be if she constantly brought crime into her home. Over the years she had become more open with her children as they grew and could understand some of what she dealt with, but she always tried to keep it to anecdotes about co-workers rather than actual crime scenes.

If she didn't deal with this immediately, something could be said to the wrong person and her career might be effected. As much as she cherished her co-workers and the camaraderie they had created, she had her eye on the professional ladder and wanted to go further in the department. She still had a good 15 years to go before retirement and wanted to get as far as she could on her own merit. Although she was considered one of the top ranking women in the LAPD, with a good number of women and men working under her, she didn't want to stay at the level of Captain. Commander had a nicer ring to it, and she was working hard to get to that next level of achievement. No matter how well meaning Will was in his concern, Sharon was no fool. The LAPD was still a boys club and women who were broken or damaged in their estimation would not be given more authority.

Why, oh why did he have to pick now to try to analyze her behaviour? Sharon groaned as she thought about it. She and Will were finally in a better place and she wanted to keep it that way. It had taken years and more than a few arguments, but they had made it.

While Sharon walked the streets of her neighbourhood, Will walked the corridors of the LAPD having a similar internal conversation. He and Sharon had found their footing as colleagues, as friends, even as ... well he hoped they would anyway. But this seed of doubt in her openness had been planted by a fellow officer and he just couldn't let it go. Why didn't Sharon talk to him about her past if she didn't have anything to hide? Hadn't he talked freely about his ex-wives and how painful that had been? Surely she knew she could trust him with anything. Perhaps his teasing had gotten out of hand a time or two, and maybe he had been a little more sarcastic and a little less supportive of her than he should have been, but she gave as good as she got, and was always calling him on matters of importance. She never backed down when she thought him wrong, and she always explained her position clearly. Sharon was the finest officer he had ever met, truly dedicated to her job and with a coolness of intellect that cut through the distractions to get to the crux of the matter. In fact if he was to be totally honest, he had started to rely on her perception of the legal issues the department faced and usually listened to her opinion before anyone else's. So why was she so angry at him? Didn't she understand he was trying to be supportive to her, to protect her privacy and her feelings?

As he rounded the corner he discovered himself in Major Crimes. The team had just wrapped up their case and was getting ready to pack the evidence away for the lawyers. A sense of a job well done hung in the air, and just the day before Sharon had assured him the division had solved the case by the book.

"Will?" Brenda said to him, startling him in the process "is there something I can do for you?"

"Yes Chief, can we have a word? In your office please."

A few eyebrows raised as the Deputy Chief nodded her head and gestured for Will Pope to follow her into her office.

"What is it Will?" she asked as soon as they were inside her office and the door was closed. "It looks serious. Has there been more legal action taken against me or Major Crimes?"

"No, no, this isn't about you. This is about... You've been working closely with Capt. Raydor. Would you say there was anything, oh I don't know, different about the way she behaves on one case as opposed to another? Do some situations bring out more emotion in her than others?"

Brenda sat down at her desk and reached for her candy drawer, trying to decipher what the Chief was really asking her. Although she and Raydor had moved from antagonists to close colleagues, she didn't feel versed enough to speak about the Captain's emotional responses to cases.

"Well, I'm not really sure how to answer that. Capt'n Raydor is always professional when she's around us. She's not here to solve our crimes, as you know, she's only here to make sure Goldman doesn't get any more dirt to use on me. She usually just walks around with that little notebook of hers, writing things down and asking questions that quite frankly annoy us to no end. I'm sure she enjoys her job, but I wouldn't be surprised if she was bored to tears. That's the only emotion I've seen."

Brenda's answer didn't even begin to touch on what he was looking for, and Will started pacing her office.

"But I'm talking about her reactions. Does she react more to a child being killed than an adult? Does it matter more if a woman has been killed? What if that woman has been killed by her husband, does she react then?"

"I'm sure she has all of those reactions. This entire department has a harder time dealing with a child being killed than if it was a drug dealer. The law might treat everyone equal, but you can't stop human nature from feeling more compassion for the vulnerable. What are you really asking anyway? What's going on with Capt'n Raydor that you're not telling me?"

Will finally sat down and faced Brenda. "Okay, but this is a conversation between me to you, not my office to your office, understand?"

When Brenda nodded, Will continued and confessed how he'd gotten information that the Captain hadn't been acting up to her usual professional standards in issues of domestic abuse recently. "It all seemed to start with that case in her department two years ago, when one of her own claimed her husband beat her. The opinion seems to be that Capt. Raydor reacted more than a regular Superior Officer should have in that situation. If she's letting her past interfere with her work, then the Office of Chief has to step in. I don't want to do that without knowing exactly what is going on, and when I tried to talk to Sharon... Capt. Raydor about it, she got angry and slammed the phone down."

"And I'm sure you spoke to her in your usual supportive manner" Brenda said sarcastically before taking a bite of her chocolate bar.

"What are you talking about? This is serious" Will exclaimed, sitting back in his chair as if slapped.

"Sure it is - if it's true. I've seen nothing to indicate that Capt'n Raydor can't deal with domestic abuse cases. Have you even told her this is being said and ask her about it, or are you just assuming it's true and thinking you're going to rescue her? You know Will, sometimes you have no sense when it comes to women, especially when you don't know what you're talking about. I don't know how close you and Capt'n Raydor are outside these walls, and quite frankly I don't want to know, but it might serve you well to speak to people who actually know something about her and don't have a bone to pick with the head of FID."

Without another word Brenda called one of her team into her office and explained the accusations that were being made against Sharon Raydor and her former husband.

"Nate Armstrong?" Andy sputtered. "Are you kidding me?"


	3. Chapter 3

"Capt'n Raydor's ex-husband is Nate Armstrong? I never heard her mention that name. What do you know about him, Lt. Flynn?" Brenda easily took command of the conversation and ignored Will's glaring at her from the other side of her desk.

"Well I know that anyone who thinks Nate laid a finger on Capt. Raydor doesn't know anything about him. And he's not her ex, he died about a decade ago... brain tumor. She nursed him to the end and wouldn't hear of taking him to a hospice. That family's tight, real old fashioned Irish Catholic folk who put each other first. I remember his funeral was more a celebration of his life than anything about his death. He was good stuff."

As he spoke Andy Flynn stared off into the distance, remembering far more than he was telling. Brenda picked up on his silence and thought it best to redirect the conversation back to Pope's concerns.

"Are you sure there wasn't any abuse in that house? Or perhaps Capt'n Raydor experienced it at the hands of someone else, a boyfriend maybe, or some other relative or friend of the family. Anything like that?"

Will sat silently, trying to reconcile this information with what he'd received from other places in the LAPD. Nothing matched up, even the name wasn't what he'd heard. He was beginning to feel like a Rookie who didn't know the right questions to ask, and he was also starting to realize his approach with Sharon had been all wrong. No wonder she'd been angry and slammed the phone in his ear.

"Not that I know of, not that we were close or anything back when I knew them together anyway. She's never seemed the type to be keeping a dark secret. Even after Nate died I don't think I ever saw her haunted by anyone or anything, she's made different than that. Raydor just seems to ignore all the BS and gets on with things. I don't even think she was angry about her husband's cancer, just accepting that bad things happen and you've got to deal with it."

"So you were weren't close then? You and Capt'n Raydor?" Brenda's questions were becoming more personal, realizing she knew even less about the people around her than she thought, and feeling sympathy for Will as he sat across from her obviously feeling guilty for opening this can of worms.

"It's complicated. Anyway Chief, I think whoever sent you on this wild goose chase into Raydor's life was hoping to set her up. I wouldn't believe in a million years that she's been a victim of abuse, at least not at the hands of anyone she's known well or cared about, but I would believe that she let her professional mask slip a little when no one was looking. In our line of work it's normal to start questioning the behaviour of everyone around us looking for slip-ups. None of us takes anything at face value. If Raydor is showing more emotion about women who have been abused, I'd bet my last dollar it was because she was sympathetic not because she can relate."

Brenda turned to Will and was about to speak when his cell phone began to ring. Looking at the number Will sighed, asked silent apologies from the others in the room and answered the call.

"Will, we need to talk. Now."

"I agree. I'm at the office, you could..."

"No", Sharon interrupted. "This is not a conversation to be had anywhere near the LAPD. We have to get a few things straight and you need to come here to do it. You know the way. I'll be waiting." And with that she ended the call and turned to walk home.

"I take it Capt'n Raydor isn't through with you yet" Brenda observed out loud. "You want back-up or should I just let you walk to the gallows of your own accord?"

Will stood up and moved to the door, all but ignoring Brenda's offer. However as his hand touched the knob he thought better of it. "Chief, I think it would be a good idea if you came with me. Not as a support for me - I deserve whatever tongue lashing the Captain is about to give me. But I think to end this matter once and for all, it might be wise to have someone along who deals with the Captain at arms length and would not be swayed by personal opinion."

Still leaning against the book shelf, Andy smiled sardonically. His personal opinions of the woman didn't matter, but he'd be fit to be tied if he let Raydor or her husband be slandered in this manner. "I'm coming too Chief. With two superior brass showing up at her house, I think Raydor would appreciate the support of someone who was there and knew Nate."

"Fine Lieutenant, but we are traveling in the same car. I think the last thing Capt'n Raydor needs is half a squadron showing up in her driveway. I'm assuming one or both of you gentlemen know the address. Will, you're driving."

Across the city, Sharon returned home and joined her kids in the kitchen. From the looks of it the only thing that had moved was the platter of cookies. Sometimes she wondered why she even put in the effort of baking, considering it was gone before it even saw the inside of a Tupperware container.

"I trust you are going to clean up in here when you're finished" Sharon called to them as she passed by to get a bottle of juice from the refrigerator.

"Don't we always?" Riley asked.

Sharon snorted with derision then left the kitchen and made her way to the living room. Throwing herself onto the sofa she put her feet up on the ottoman and leaned her head back, closing her eyes.

"What's going to happen, Mom? Lexi quietly asked. At 23 she was the oldest and had put herself into the role of her mother's caretaker, no matter how much Sharon tried to prevent it. But at times like this, Sharon really appreciated the gentle awareness and concern of her daughter.

Without opening her eyes or moving a muscle, Sharon told her Will was on his way over so they could talk this out. They might have joked about it at the kitchen table, but Lexi was just as aware as Sharon was the damage that this accusation could have to her mother's credibility as an officer.

"Poop is on his way over?" Riley said gleefully.

"Can it Bubby", Jamie glared at him. She looked at her 17 year old brother and wanted to slap him. Why didn't he get the fact that their mother was not in the mood?

"Listen Sis, we all have our roles to play. Lexi makes sure everyone is taken care of, Sam moves the heavy stuff, you feed us and I'm the handsome baby brother who makes a mockery of everything. That's my job." His toothy grin added the punctuation to his reply.

Sharon couldn't help but smile at her youngest.

"What's really going on, Mom?" Sam asked, ignoring Jamie and Riley.

Looking her oldest son directly in the eye, Sharon told him how a rumour of her being abused by their father had made it's way to Chief Pope's office and how the Chief wanted her to do something about it. Rather than the anger she expected, she saw tears forming in Sam's eyes and squeezed his hands in acknowledgement.

"I need to talk to the Chief" Sam said evenly.


	4. Chapter 4

Chief Pope, Deputy Chief Johnson and Lt. Flynn piled into Pope's car and exited the parking garage under the LAPD's offices. Each of them was engaged with their own personal thoughts, not wanting to bring them to the attention of the others. For Pope it was wondering how he'd gone from trying to be supporting of someone he truly admired to messing up their relationship. For Flynn it was a stroll down memory lane, visiting events he'd just as soon forget. But for Brenda it was a mixture of concern, curiosity and more than a little envy. Who was Sharon Raydor really? They had been working side by side for months and she still knew next to nothing about the Captain. Brenda's personal life was an open book for all of them, with her father's cancer, her mother's attempts to make everyone feel at home, her husband popping into the offices regularly, and her past as Pope's lover, it seemed nothing she did was truly private. But what did she really know about the woman who'd been supporting her unquestioningly for months, aside from the fact that her parents were still living and she had kids? Nothing really, she didn't even know how many kids and whether they were boys or girls. To top everything off, as she looked at Will's profile she saw something there she'd never seen before - something definitely never directed her way - and that was genuine compassion without a hint of self-interest. Who was this woman who captured the thoughts of the men around her, who knew her job and did it with complete conviction? Brenda always thought of her as a well dressed robot, she realized, someone who was put on this earth only to be annoying, but not as someone who had a life of her own.

When they arrived at the Raydor-Armstrong home, both men in the car let out a sigh and Brenda turned to look at each one of them wondering what they were thinking. "This outta be fun" she said out loud, and both men shook from their revery.

Inside Sharon waited with her children, Riley continuing to liven the mood and she loved him for it. "Should I grab the basket of beanbags? It's a little far across the room for you to reach easily. Oh, oh I know. The gun in your back seat. Can I get that please? Ugh, ugh? Can you just imagine Poop's face walking in here and you have a gun in your hand. I'd pay money to see that one."

"Riley" Sam, Jamie and Lexi yelled at the same time.

"What?" the teenager asked, looking complete innocent.

"Do you get that this is about Dad? Maybe you were too young to remember but..."

"Listen Sam, I knew Dad. Sure I was a kid when he died but I know one thing for sure, and that's that he would be laughing about this and saying all we have to do is talk it out to find out where the mix-up came from. He wouldn't be mad or take it personally, he'd just shrug it off and know the only thing that mattered was that the people he loved knew he would never hurt Mom in a million years. I get that you want to defend Dad's memory and all, but seriously what's to defend? Shake it off and get with the program. This is Poop being an idiot and talking out of his ass, and how many times have we seen that?"

Sharon stood up and hugged her youngest son. "Riley's right, so let's liven the mood and remember who your Dad really was. I just heard the car pull in so I'm going to let him in and we'll get this sorted out. And no more "Poop" comments, understood?"

"Yes Ma'am" she heard with more than one cheeky grin.

Her smile immediately dropped when she opened the door and found not only Chief Pope but Deputy Chief Johnson and Lt. Flynn at her door as well. "To what do I owe this honour?" Sharon looked over at her kids and back to the door again. "Chief Johnson, Lt. Flynn, I wasn't expecting you."

Sensing neither of her companions knew what to say, Brenda immediately took over "It's nothing to be concerned about Capt'n, not really. Chief Pope here explained what was going on to me personally and I talked to Lt. Flynn to get some information before we came over. We all thought it best that this conversation was heard by more than one Officer so that there wouldn't be any confusion in the future. May we come in?"

"Is this an official visit?" Sharon asked, glaring at Will.

"No Capt'n", Brenda intervened again. "Just a group of concerned, ah... 'friends', having a little chat."

Nodding Sharon looked at the three of them and replied "well in that case, we'll dispense with the titles. My 'friends' call me Sharon and I don't bring my work into my home, and since I'm about to welcome you into my home we're going to keep this on a first name basis, agreed?"

"Most definitely, Sharon" Brenda smiled sweetly, brushing past her. "I'll apologize in advance if I slip and call you Capt'n. You can just correct me. Thank you for welcoming me to your lovely home."

Brenda turned and did a quick survey of Sharon's home. Family pictures on the wall, gaming console by the television, tasteful overstuffed furniture throughout the room, doors leading in various directions, and right in the middle four young adults who could only be related to Sharon by blood. Four children? How did Sharon have the time to have four children and focus on her career? Each of them had Sharon's green eyes, and the hair colour stretched from a deep chestnut on the oldest girl to a redish blond on the youngest boy. They were all tall, attractive people who seemed to share their mother's intense gaze.

"Chi... Brenda, I'd like to introduce you to my children. My daughters Alexis and Jamie, and my sons Samson and Riley. Kids, this is Brenda Lee Johnson, whom you've heard me mention. This is Andy Flynn. He and I go way back and he knew your father years ago. And of course you know Will Pope." Sharon sharpened her gaze ever so slightly at Riley to make sure he behaved.

Brenda stepped forward and shook hands with all of the Armstrong children, then took the seat Lexi offered her. Andy just waved at the lot and moved off to the side while Will put his hand protectively on Sharon's lower back and moved the two of them into the living room.

The tension was thick among the eight occupants of the room and Sharon had had enough.

"Will, I told the kids your preconceptions about me and my past, and since you've come with others I can only assume you've spoken to them as well, so let's cut to the chase. Why do you think I'm in denial about being an abuse victim? What makes you think I was beaten by my husband?"

All eyes turned to him as Will shifted uncomfortably in his seat. This was not how he wanted this day to end. "You have to understand Sharon, there's no shame in being a victim of abuse. We at the LAPD have programs put in place to help the staff cope with any of these issues. Being an Officer is a very hard thing to do sometimes and it's pretty common knowledge that for some people, bringing it home is pretty standard. We have more broken homes in our profession than any other line of work."

Wetting her lips, Sharon looked directly at will. "Well, first of all, statistically that has been proven untrue. Police officers fall in line with the national divorce averages and more than one study has noted that. Secondly, I'm the Officer, not my husband, so based on your argument I would be the abuser, not the victim. Thirdly, I never said there was any shame in acknowledging being an abuse victim. In fact I go to great lengths to support anyone, male or female, who is experiencing that level of violence, and my record shows that.

"The real situation here Will, is that you've blurred the lines of our personal and professional relationships and rather than talking to me about this directly, you've chosen to pass judgement. As Chief of Police, you of all people should know lines of evidence need to be followed and we can never assume anything based on hearsay. You also must know that as a Department Head, I cannot be bringing my personal issues into the job and any suggestion that I am undermines all of my cases, cases I've worked hard to make airtight. You might have the pleasure of dealing with all Officers in the LAPD, but I deal with the less-than-stellar Officers on a regular basis and any one of them would take great pleasure in overturning my decisions.

"Will, I don't talk about my past with you because it's my past. It's over and done with. I have my memories but I certainly don't live in them. I'm not hiding anything."


	5. Chapter 5

Ignoring everyone else in the room, Will moved closer to Sharon and took her hands in his.

"You understand why I worry about you, don't you? You're so private and your lines about what you will and won't do are so strict, when I hear that you are hiding something very important from me I want to do something to make it better. I'm not capable of being completely professional with you. No one brings out my anger or sarcasm faster than you do, nor my admiration. I trust you to make things right, and you don't trust me at all."

"Will, I do..."

"No, you don't, and I accept that. I'm not exactly a paragon of virtue, as you've pointed out more than once. But just the thought of you suffering at the hands of someone else is enough to drive me crazy. Why do you react more to women who've been abused by their partners? You're usually so even in your approach with everyone. I had nothing to give in response when I was told it had been witnessed more than a few times that you crossed a line of professional concern into preferential compassion. I haven't had a formal complaint or anything like that, but why did you react so strongly to Ally Moore?"

"Ally was FID", Sharon said gently.

"It's more than that."

"No, really it wasn't. She was FID and I was her Commanding Officer. It was my job to make sure my people were taken care of, and to suddenly realize one of my own was being abused at home without me even suspecting was a real slap in my face. How could I be that oblivious when my job required me to watch every nuance in a person's behaviour? I had failed her and had to protect her and fight for her.

"Look Will, Chief Johnson... Brenda, was even there the moment we realized Ally had lied to both of us, and she can tell you my response was anything but 'preferential compassion'. I was seething. Not only had Ally manipulated me, I allowed her to use me to manipulate the entire system. My focus became pretty clear after we caught Ally in her lies, and the Major Crimes team and I worked to get justice for Ally's husband.

"What you don't know is I took the entire episode personally because of the manipulation, not because of my own past experiences. I pride myself on professional detachment and I'd blown it with the entire Moore case. So rather than make a big deal of it at work, I went to Loyola where my husband used to teach, and spend time with some of his former colleagues getting retrained on how to recognize the signs of personal abuse and how to deal with victims. I've adjusted my approach since then, and that's probably what people are seeing. The whole notion of me being an abuse victim is someone's imagination run amok."

"That, or someone intentionally trying to damage the reputation of the FID officer assigned to ferret out the mole in Major Crimes and the LAPD." Andy interrupted for the first time. The idea that the Captain and the Chief were on such close personal terms did not sit well with him, and he could read in the guarded facial expressions of the Deputy Chief that she was having the same reaction. The sooner he could leave and have credible deniability, the better.

Will turned to Andy at that moment, and pierced him with a look of his own. "And just how do you know so much about Captain Raydor's relationship with her husband and are so sure this is someone's agenda against the Captain?"

"All friends here. First names please" Riley interrupted, earning a punch in the arm from his sister. "Ow ..."

Shifting uncomfortably, Andy looked over to Sharon who gave him a simple smile of encouragement. "Look, the kids probably don't remember but when their dad was alive I used to come here from time to time. I was drinking heavily and this was a safe place. Before I really kicked the bottle I tried AA a couple of times and the meetings just happened to be at the church where Nate volunteered. I met Sharon and the kids through him and they helped me out, got me dried out a time or two, listened to my sob story. Even when he got really sick, Nate still made time for me. Nate believed in me and asked me to watch out for Sharon at work. He told me right up to the end he knew I had the strength to crawl out of the bottle, I just hadn't been inspired enough to do it yet. I could always call here when I was in trouble and I knew they'd have my back. I guess in some way Nate Armstrong is the reason I'm still standing today.

"I remember you" Lexi said softly.

Brenda had had all she could take. This entire episode just reinforced for her that Capt. Raydor was as put together on the inside as she was on the outside, and that made Brenda feel like an even hotter mess in her presence. "Well, I think that answers any questions we have, Will. Clearly Capt'n Sharon hasn't been keeping anything from you that needs to be explored professionally. I see no evidence that anything is being hidden, and there certainly wasn't any physical evidence to support the concerns. I think the Capt'n is pretty clear on her respect and concern for women who have been abused, as we all are, but that doesn't have to translate into her experiencing it first hand. Capt'n, I'm sorry for the intrusion and any worry our presence here today has caused. You have a lovely family and I'm truly sorry your husband died before he was able to watch them grow up. We best be getting on. Will? Lieutenant?"

Sharon walked her guests to the door and thanked them for coming.

We'll talk later" Will promised.

"Perhaps" Sharon replied coyly.

Just before he left, Andy noticed the basket of beanbags and picked one up. "These look familiar" he said, tossing one in the air.

Riley grinned, "Mom calls them her 'souvenirs'."

"Right between the eyeballs" Andy laughed.

"You know it!"


End file.
